Turn back to our Los Angeles story, and refresh your mind concerning “Bill 1013” whereby the Better America Federation and its political crooks tried to cripple the schools of the state. When this bill came up before the legislature, the teachers’ agents were assured that it would not affect the schools, so they let it go by; afterwards, the teachers had to initiate and put through a referendum to repeal this bill, so as to keep the schools functioning. Mr. Chase was a leader in this procedure, and earned thereby the deadly enmity of the Black Hand. They did all they could to drive him out of the school; his principal was offered promotion by Judge Bordwell, president of the school board, on condition that he would get rid of Chase and two other “radicals.” It was during this intrigue that Bordwell asked the question: “Can’t you get something on their morals?” Mr. Chase came back to Los Angeles and set to work on a plan to enable the teachers of the city to exercise control of their Association. At risk of repetition, let me make it clear that these teachers’ associations are purely voluntary affairs—the teachers’ clubs, or professional societies, which they try to run in their own interest and according to their own ideas. Not merely does the gang take this control away from them; the gang has made it a matter of professional life and death for a teacher to stand out for the independence of the federation. When elections are held, principals and superintendents are nominated, and teachers who oppose their superior’s ambitions are denied promotion, and sometimes dismissed. Let me remind you of the teacher in Oakland who refused to vote for Superintendent Hunter’s candidate, and was hounded, not merely in the schools, but in the business world outside. It is no easy matter for a common teacher to travel to a convention; only the high-salaried ones can afford such a luxury. The rules of the teachers’ associations permit members of one group to send members of another group as delegates; so when the teachers cannot go, it is tactfully suggested that a superintendent or a principal would like to go; and how should a teacher be rude enough to deny credentials to such a personage? So these personages go; they go fully versed in the technique of controlling conventions, and the first thing they do is to enter a caucus, and come out of it with a program of proceedings and a “slate,” all ready to be “jammed through.”